By Maria Millers
Be like a tree, let the dead leaves drop- Rumi (13th century mystic and poet)
Americans when away from home are often heard to say how they want to be home for the Fall, their way of describing the season we call Autumn.
When compared to countries with climates more suited to growing deciduous trees, only in certain areas in Australia does the climate allow the planting s off exotic European trees to flourish and put on the seasonal show stopper that draws so many Americans home.
Spectacular displays are confined to cooler areas such as the Blue Mountains in NSW and in Bright and the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria to name a few.
There is an absence of deciduous plants in our flora. Australia has just one true temperate deciduous native tree — the deciduous beech or Fagus (Nothofagus gunnii) in Tasmania,
which puts on a stunning autumn display before dropping all its leaves in anticipation of cold winter weather.
Here in The Dandenongs, Autumn, that “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, as Romantic English poet Keats described, it, has finally arrived.
Days that start out with misty mornings, then unfold into gently sunny days.
But as the sun sets earlier and earlier a definite chill descends in the afternoons, a sharp reminder to us that winter is just around the corner.
Outside I can hear the spikey seed balls falling from the maple tree onto the roof of the nearby shed with each flurry of wind bringing down a wave of leaves, laying down a crunchy
carpet in shades of scarlet, saffron and russet. Leaves that I will have to deal with before the rain comes and turns their crunchiness into mush.
Somewhere someone is burning off and there is the guilty atavistic pleasure in the smell of burning leaves and wood from the nearby forest.
Autumn brings out a variety of emotions in different people, depending on personal experience, cultural background and individual temperament.
It can inspire feelings both positive and negative.
The season has always been associated with the ripening of harvests, a season of plenty.
Many Still Art paintings like Cezanne’s are full of sensuous scenes of ripe fruits and flowers: pumpkins, apples, pears, chestnuts, quinces and the last lingering crops of summer vegetables.
In the past, many regarded this season as ‘ the tyranny of the harvest’ when ripened produce would have to be quickly preserved, bottled or dried to feed the family through the winter
months.
Some families of Italian heritage still uphold the tradition of Passata Day, a gathering of family, friends and neighbours to process home grown tomatoes to last the whole year.
Today with most produce available all year fewer and fewer people keep up these traditional skills.
It’s a season beloved in writing for all ages: “It’s the first day of autumn! A time of hot chocolatey mornings, and toasty marshmallow evenings, and best of all, leaping into leaves!”, declared Winnie the Pooh in Pooh’s Grand Adventure.
Novelists use autumn as an atmospheric backdrop, enhancing the narrative with the season’s rich symbolism of change, decay, and transition. In JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Holden
Caulfield’s story is framed by the autumn season which mirrors his own feelings of loss, change and the struggle to hold on to childhood.
Autumn’s beauty often inspires romantic feelings of love and longing and this is reflected in many poems and songs.
But not all feel this way and some may experience a type of depression or melancholy known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (Sad) and may struggle through a season that suggests
impermanence, the passage of time and inevitably makes us think how brief our lives are.
Impermanence is captured in Robert Frost’s poem, Gathering Leaves.
If you have a garden with deciduous trees and face the mundane and frustrating task of raking the leaves and disposing of them you will sympathize with the speaker in this poem.
Spades take up leaves, No better than spoons, And bags full of leaves, Are light as balloons
Such repetitive and seemingly insignificant tasks that face us daily all contribute to the larger tapestry of our lives.
The act of gathering leaves becomes a metaphor for life’s pursuits.
The speaker’s efforts to collect leaves mirror our own endeavours, often resulting in seemingly insignificant outcomes.
Despite the laborious task, the leaves remain elusive, much like our many dreams.
I make a great noise Of rustling all day Like rabbit and deer Running away.
But the mountains I raise Elude my embrace, Flowing over my arms And into my face.
Songs can always spark feelings, positive or otherwise. Nat King Cole’s rendition of ‘Autumn Leaves’, is full on nostalgia and sadness as the singer remembers happier times of a past love affair…
The changing season reminds him of the happy times shared and the pain of lingering memories.
The coming of the cold only intensifies feelings of nostalgia and the falling leaves capture these feelings of loss, loneliness and inevitability of change;
The falling leaves drift by the window,
The autumn leaves of red and gold.
And then:
Since you went away
The days grow long
And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all, my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall
And like with Frost there is an underlying tone of acceptance.
Hard as it is to accept the end of a relationship life moves on just as the seasons change.
Simon and Garfunkel’s 1966 song Leaves that are Green begins with the line which spell out an awareness of the transience of youth In lyrics of poetic depth and introspection it explores
passage of time, brevity of life and inevitability of change.
I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song, I’m twenty-two now but I won’t be for long
It is the leaves, their changing colours and falling from trees that captures these concerns.
Nothing remains the same forever. Youth slips away too quickly and old age is inevitable.
Time hurries on
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither with the wind
And they crumble in your hand
But even if Autumn does not bring out the same positive emotions as spring it can be a time
to reflect and to accept as the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, ‘The only constant is change.’
All around you plants may be withering and dying back, but remember that come spring they will come back with vigour and new growth, surely a sign of resilience, renewal and hope.
And with that in mind now is the time to plant some spring flowering bulbs like hyacinths, daffodils and tulips.
Leaves that are Green
I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song
I’m twenty-two now, but I won’t be for long
Time hurries on
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither with the wind
And they crumble in your hand
Once my heart was filled with the love of a girl
I held her close, but she faded in the night
Like a poem I meant to write
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither with the wind
And they crumble in your hand
I threw a pebble in a brook
And watched the ripples run away
And they never made a sound
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither with the wind
And they crumble in your hand
Hello, hello, hello, hello
Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye, good-bye
That’s all there is
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
